Karachi Shipyard helds keel laying ceremony of third MILGEM class corvette for the Pakistani Navy.

According to news published by the Tele-Visual Infolink website on October 26, 2020, the keel laying ceremony of the third MILGEM class corvette for the Pakistani navy was held on October 26, 2020, at Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works (KS&EW). Minister of National Defence of the Republic of Turkey, H.E Mr. Hulusi Akar, Pakistan’s Minister for Defence Production, Ms Zubaida Jalal and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Muhammad Amjad Khan Niazi attended the ceremony.
Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link

MILGEM-class corvette for Pakistani navy. (Picture source Pakistan Navy)

The MILGEM project was initiated in 2000 to locally design and build a fleet of multipurpose corvettes and frigates that will replace older ships. Within the scope of the Patrol and Antisubmarine Warfare Ship (MiLGEM) Project, which is one of the most important projects of the Turkish Armed Forces, the following stages were carried out between the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey Presidency of Defence Industries.

In 2018, Pakistan’s navy signed a contract for the acquisition of four MILGEM-Class corvettes with Turkey’s state-owned defense firm ASFAT. The 1st and 2nd ship will be built at Istanbul Naval Shipyard while two ships will be constructed at Karachi shipyard & Engineering Works (KS&EW). A noteworthy feature of the contract is that the 3rd and 4th warships will be designed jointly by Pakistan's Maritime Technologies Complex (MTC) and will be the first indigenously designed & constructed Frigate.

MILGEM project is a national warship program of the Republic of Turkey. Managed by the Turkish Navy, the project aims at developing multipurpose corvettes and frigates that can be deployed in a range of missions, including reconnaissance, surveillance, early warning, anti-submarine warfare, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air warfare, and amphibious operations.

According to the Pakistani MoD (Ministry of Defense), the Pakistani navy will receive the first MILGEM corvette by 2023 while the other three ships will be delivered by 2025.

MILGEM Class Ship is a capable and extremely potent platform, favorably comparable with any contemporary warship of modern navies. The ship is equipped with modern stealth features, and state of the art 5th generation weapons and sensors including an indigenously developed missile system hence configured to undertake multifaceted operations in all domains of naval warfare.